Lovy's early career was spent as a comic artist at DC Comics,[2] and he became an animator at the Lantz studio in the late 1930s, his first credit being as director of Feed the Kitty in 1938. Studio head Walter Lantz was taking a hiatus from directing at this time, and Lovy directed many of the studio's shorts in the 1938-1940 period. He stepped down to animator in 1940 after Lantz reverted to being director, but continued to play an important role in the production of the shorts, and stepped up to being the studio's lead director of Woody Woodpecker shorts when Lantz retired from directing in 1942. The following year however, Lovy was drafted into the US Navy and left the studio; Shamus Culhane in the meantime replaced Lovy.

After the end of World War II, Lovy worked briefly for Columbia Pictures' cartoon unit, directing five shorts before it was closed down, and in 1955 made his return to the Lantz studio, initially to finish some cartoons that Tex Avery had produced during a brief stint as director there.[3] He carried on directing at the Lantz studio until the end of the decade, at which point he moved over to Hanna-Barbera. There, he worked mainly as a producer and storyboard artist, and often supervised the studio's voice recording sessions. In 1967, Lovy moved to the newly re-opened Warner Bros. cartoon studio, where he created the characters Cool Cat[4] and Merlin the Magic Mouse,[5] in addition to directing cartoons with classic characters Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales. After just over a year at Warner Bros., Lovy returned to Hanna-Barbera, and worked there in various capacities until shortly before his death.

According to Walter Lantz, Lovy was ambidextrous, and could draw two storyboards at the same time, one with each hand.